Sonnet 126 - Analysis

Analysis

Original: O thou my lovely boy, who in thy power

Dost hold time’s fickle glass, his sickle hour;

Who has by waning grown and therein show’st

Thy lovers with’ring as thy sweet self grow’st

If nature, sov’reign mistress over wrack,

As thou go’st onward still will pluck thee back,

She keeps thee to this purpose that her skill

May ime disgrace and wretched minutes kill.

Yet fear her, O thou minion of her pleasure,

She may detain, but not still keep her treasure!

Her audit, though delay’d, answer’d must be,

And her Quietus is to render thee.

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Paraphrase: O you, my lovely boy, who hold in your power Time’s hour-glass and his sickle—you who wane as you grow older and in that show your friends withering as you yourself grow up: if Nature, sovereign mistress over chaos, as you go onwards will ever pluck you back, she keeps you to demonstrate her power to hold up time. Yet fear her, you who are Nature’s darling: she may detain her treasure, but not keep it for ever. Her last account, though delayed, must be paid and her discharge is to render you up.

Ramsey, when examining the overview of plot of the sonnet, observes that Shakespeare begins Sonnet 126 with a claim, then moves to a fear, and then ends with a stark precise accepting of the power and unavoidability of time and death. When analyzing these 12 lines, Sethna suggests that the lovely boy is becoming substantially older in years with out losing any beauty; in fact he is increasing with beauty: he has grown by waning, he has turned more boyishly lovely as the span of his life lessens further and further. Sethna believes that the boy’s lack of aging underscores Shakespeare’s aging, and Shakespeare’s aging highlight’s nature’s ability to ignore Time in the boy’s case. This is emphasized by Nature’s capacity to foil Time’s destructiveness. Nonetheless, the capacity can only last so long. Slightly paralleled by A. L. Rowse, author of Shakespeare’s Sonnets: The Problems Solved, lines 3-4 are interpreted as alluding to the youth’s beauty as a contrast with his friends. As the youth’s beauty wanes, so his friends wither, as he grows older; contrasting Sethna’s view of the youth’s beauty accentuating Shakespeare’s lack of beauty. Rowse also suggests that this idea may also imply a further consistency; Shakespeare’s concern with the ebb and flow of things; their waxing and waning. Perhaps the influence of constant Ovidian thought. Anspacher too, interprets the idea of time with a similar view stating that love is not time’s fool. In other words, even Time, “the most willful and absolute dictator in the world, cannot treat Love as he would treat his fool or his jester”, and eventually must succeed to Nature. As Murray Krieger notes, author of A Window to Criticism; Shakespeare’s Sonnets and modern poetics, time’s sickle represents an “ignoble reduction of time. A reduction that cannot be produced, no matter the tool nor the wistfulness.

Her audit, though delay’d, answer’d must be,

And her Quietus is to render thee.

When analyzing this couplet, Author and critic R. Graves reasons that this couplet is not only the pictographic "Quietus" of line 12 but also the "delayed Oddity" mentioned in line 11: "Audite (though delayd) answer'd must be." (Here even the parentheses seem like a predictive pun). One meaning of this line is, "My reader must try to explain my terminal 'Oddity.' Another pun occurs in the verb "to render," which has three relevant meanings. The first, "to repeat,” seems connected with the punning phrase "two rendered he" and with the couplet's "repetition." But the other two meanings are more interesting: "to melt (fat, etc.),” and to "reproduce or represent, esp. by artistic means; to depict.” These meanings join the tangled double entendres in "Enter Quietusess two render thee" to suggest such readings of line 12 as "You're suffering melt-down over this couplet" and "Nature's two 'Quietuses' intrude here to depict you". Because an "Audit" was originally a "hearing," one ironic idea here is that something silent (like the missing couplet) can be "heard" and "must be answered--or can be "Anne's word." The pun "End here" (line 12) signals the poet's early ending in line 12, not 14. A different kind of runic wit occurs in the punning conceit "Enter Quietuses to " where two abstractions—the empty couplet lines—hover like hooded figures in a medieval morality. Though scholars may differ in their interpretation of text, the central idea seems to be very clear. Sonnet 126 deals with a marked lapse of time and leads the reader to the realization that the relationship between author and subject has continued on for years but has now begun to wane or fizzle out. Ramsey too believes that the central idea rests in the reality of the natural relation that must be paid and the truth that must be faced by the author. Through these words, it is divulged that love changes; beauty passes; and men die.